Ritt-Master Dugald Dalgetty

“I am for God and my standard,” answered the single horseman.

“And for which standard?” replied the chief of the other
party--“Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?”

“By my troth, sir,” answered the soldier, “I would be loath to reply
to you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of
fortune and a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming
veracity, it is necessary I should myself have resolved to
whilk of the present divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately
adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not as yet
preceesely ascertained.”

“I should have thought,” answered the gentleman, “that, when loyalty
and religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be
long in choosing his party.”

“Truly, sir,” replied the trooper, “if ye speak this in the way of
vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my
single person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of
logical ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the
Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye
LOGICE, that my resolution to defer, for a certain season, the
taking upon me either of these quarrels, not only becometh me as a
gentleman and a man of honour, but also as a person of sense and
prudence, one imbued with humane letters in his early youth, and
who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars under the banner of
the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and under many
other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and
Arminian.”

After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger
gentleman replied, “I should be glad, sir, to have some
conversation with you upon so interesting a question, and should be
proud if I can determine you in favour of the cause I have myself
espoused. I ride this evening to a friend’s house not three miles
distant, whither, if you choose to accompany me, you shall have
good quarters for the night, and free permission to take your own
road in the morning, if you then feel no inclination to join with
us.”

“Whose word am I to take for this?” answered the cautious soldier--
“A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade.”

“I am called,” answered the younger stranger, “the Earl of Menteith,
and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security.”

“A worthy nobleman,” answered the soldier, “whose parole is not to
be doubted.” With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his
back, and with another made his military salute to the young
nobleman, and continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him--
“And, I trust,” said he, “my own assurance, that I will be BON
CAMARADO to your lordship in peace or in peril, during the time
we shall abide together, will not be altogether vilipended in these
doubtful times, when, as they say, a man’s head is safer in a
steel-cap than in a marble palace.”

“I assure you, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that to judge from your
appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but,
I trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I
expect to conduct you to good and friendly quarters.”

“Good quarters, my lord,” replied the soldier, “are always
acceptable, and are only to be postponed to good pay or good
booty,--not to mention the honour of a cavalier, or the needful
points of commanded duty. And truly, my lord, your noble proffer
is not the less welcome, in that I knew not preceesely this night
where I and my poor companion” (patting his horse), “were to find
lodgments.”

“May I be permitted to ask, then,” said Lord Menteith, “to whom I
have the good fortune to stand quarter-master?”

“Truly, my lord,” said the trooper, “my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your
honourable service to command. It is a name you may have seen in
GALLO BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High
Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord,
having by unthrifty courses reduced a fair patrimony to a
nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was eighteen years auld,
than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at the Mareschal-College
of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of Drumthwacket,
together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs conform, to the
German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of fortune. My
lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either my gentle
kin or my book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as a
private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned
the rules of service so tightly, that I will not forget them in a
hurry. Sir, I have been made to stand guard eight hours, being
from twelve at noon to eight o’clock of the night, at the palace,
armed with back and breast, head-piece and bracelets, being iron
to the teeth, in a bitter frost, and the ice was as hard as ever
was flint; and all for stopping an instant to speak to my landlady,
when I should have gone to roll-call.”

“And, doubtless, sir,” replied Lord Menteith, “you have gone through
some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?”

“Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath
seen the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen
pitched battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of
Frankfort, and Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know
somewhat about leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls.”

“But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
promotion?”

“It came slow, my lord, dooms slow,” replied Dalgetty; “but as my
Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of
those valiant Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany,
began to fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with the
sword, why we, their children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir,
I was six years first private gentleman of the company, and three
years lance speisade; disdaining to receive a halberd, as
unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I was ultimately promoted to be a
fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which signifies an ancient),
in the King’s Leif Regiment of Black-Horse, and thereafter I arose
to be lieutenant and ritt-master, under that invincible monarch,
the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the Lion of the North, the
terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious.”

“And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that rank
corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--”

“The same grade preceesely,” answered Dalgetty; “ritt-master
signifying literally file-leader.”

“I was observing,” continued Lord Menteith, “that, if I
understood you right, you had left the service of this great
Prince.”

“It was after his death--it was after his death, sir,” said
Dalgetty, “when I was in no shape bound to continue mine
adherence. There are things, my lord, in that service, that cannot
but go against the stomach of any cavalier of honour. In
especial, albeit the pay be none of the most superabundant, being
only about sixty dollars a-month to a ritt-master, yet the
invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of that sum, whilk
was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when justly
considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have
seen some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the
field of battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt,
signifying their desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like
our noble Scottish blades, who ever disdained, my lord,
postponing of honour to filthy lucre.”

“But were not these arrears,” said Lord Menteith, “paid to the
soldiery at some stated period?”

“My lord,” said Dalgetty, “I take it on my conscience, that at no
period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever
be recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the
time I served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the
chance of a storm or victory, or the fetching in some town or
doorp, when a cavalier of fortune, who knows the usage of wars,
seldom faileth to make some small profit.”

“I begin rather to wonder, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that you
should have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you
should have ultimately withdrawn from it.”

“Neither I should,” answered the Ritt-master; “but that great
leader, captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark
of the Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking
towns, over-running countries, and levying contributions, whilk
made his service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred cavaliers
who follow the noble profession of arms. Simple as I ride here, my
lord, I have myself commanded the whole stift of Dunklespiel on the
Lower Rhine, occupying the Palsgrave’s palace, consuming his choice
wines with my comrades, calling in contributions, requisitions, and
caduacs, and not failing to lick my fingers, as became a good cook.
But truly all this glory hastened to decay, after our great master
had been shot with three bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore,
finding that Fortune had changed sides, that the borrowings and
lendings went on as before out of our pay, while the caduacs and
casualties were all cut off, I e’en gave up my commission, and took
service with Wallenstein, in Walter Butler’s Irish regiment.”

“And may I beg to know of you,” said Lord Menteith, apparently
interested in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, “how you
liked this change of masters?”

“Indifferent well,” said the Captain--“very indifferent well. I cannot
say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my
head against my old acquaintanc